Matthew Waddell’s season on the wrestling mat drew national attention.
The 2017 Gilmer High School alum completed his sophomore season last month for the University of Tennessee — Chattanooga Mocs.
Waddell posted a 22-9 record while notching wins against nationally ranked opponents. By season’s end, he was the No. 16 ranked 184-pound wrestler in the country and qualified for the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division I Championships.
For his efforts, Flo Wrestling, which is one of the sport’s top online resources for live match streaming, rankings and information, selected Waddell as having one of the “top breakout seasons of the year.”
The article states that Waddell and the seven others recognized “went from struggling, almost completely off the radar, or a backup, to an All-American threat.”
“Me and the coaches knew I had a good season,” Waddell said during an interview last week. “I had been training a year and a half to have that good season. I’m not saying we expected an article from Flo Wrestling, but we expected me to have success.
“It’s nice to get recognized, but nobody really cares. I mean, after it’s all said and done, and the dust settles, you’re still the same person. You still have to improve. It’s nice to know somebody else noticed besides me and my coaches.”
Waddell arrived in Chattanooga last April after wrestling at the University of Oklahoma for two seasons. He broke into the Sooners’ starting lineup as a freshman in 2017. Waddell took his lumps facing wrestlers who were already acclimated to the rigors of college wrestling and academics and finished with an 8-21 record.
He redshirted his second season for the Sooners, which allows wrestlers to participate without losing a year of athletic eligibility.
While he still practiced with the team, matches were a different story. Waddell was tasked with traveling on his own dime to open tournaments. Once there, he wrestled “unattached” and was not permitted to wear OU gear or receive instruction from its coaches.
“It gave me a lot more time to reflect on how I wanted to continue,” Waddell said of his redshirt season. “My freshman year, I really didn’t have that time because I was always traveling and wrestling. I didn’t get to look at the big picture. I had a lot more time and was focused on training and what was better for me.
“I loved Oklahoma. That place was awesome and had unlimited resources and pretty much unlimited money. There were just some things I didn’t like and agree with. I have the utmost respect for the coaches and all the wrestlers out there.”
Waddell finished his redshirt season with a 5-3 mark. He informed head coach Lou Rosselli of his decision to enter the transfer portal, and the two sides parted on good terms. Waddell said Oklahoma “offered to help in any way they could” as he searched for a new school.
He settled on transferring to UTC. The change of scenery allowed Waddell to continue wrestling for a quality program that was only a short drive from Ellijay, though he said that was not a determining factor.
“The coaches we have at Chattanooga are top notch, they’re young, ambitious and they want to get things done, and they want to get it done fast,” he said. “It’s hard to tell from an outside perspective because all of the changes we’ve made haven’t shown yet. Big things are going to happen in the next three or four years up there.
“The move was great for me; not just because I was close to home, because that didn’t matter, it’s just a better environment for me.”
Waddell got a boost of confidence almost immediately wrestling for the Mocs. The work put in during his redshirt season proved fruitful.
“At the beginning of the year, I had a really tough schedule,” he said. “I was wrestling around a .500 win percentage at the start of the year just because of the quality of opponents I wrestled.
“In the first dual we had, we wrestled at the Southeast Open in Virginia, and I beat the kid ranked 14th from (the University of) Missouri. The next weekend we had a trimatch at UTC, and I beat a kid ranked 12th. We (along with coaches) knew how good I was and how far I could go, but that solidified it all.”
He discussed what allowed him to have a turnaround season at Chattanooga, saying, “A lot of it came from a maturity standpoint and doing everything right and not just 60 to 70 percent of things right.
“Things like diet and nutrition and going to sleep and staying on top of everything ... it all factors into one big equation. It’s one big process. You can’t do one of the things and not do all the others and expect the same result.”
When it came to his on-mat performance, Waddell made every match tough for opponents.
“The biggest improvement was being more stingy and not giving up positions,” he said. “At Oklahoma, I was almost handicapped as a freshman because I didn’t want to give up the big match (and team bonus points to opponents). I would have rather lost by one point instead of going for something big at the end and give up more team points.
“I was granted a lot more freedom with my wrestling at Chattanooga.”
In addition to winning 70 percent of his matches for the Mocs, Waddell also placed fourth at the Southern Scuffle, which is one of the top regular season tournaments in the country.
At the Southern Conference Championships, Waddell finished second and became Gilmer County’s first wrestler to ever qualify for NCAA nationals.
However, the event was scaled back before it was eventually canceled following the outbreak of COVID-19 (cornoavirus).
“The way that everything was going at first when they said they were only going to allow family members to the national tournament, I said, ‘There’s a slim chance we’re going to have this tournament at all,’” Waddell recalled.
The 184-pound bracket at nationals would have consisted of 28 wrestlers. Waddell discussed his seeding and believed he would have fared well.
“I don’t think I should have gotten the seed (No. 20) I got,” he said. “The first round match I got (versus Lehigh’s Chris Weiler) was a real good matchup for me. I had a great chance to become an All-American (by placing in the top eight).
“I might have been seeded 20th, but it didn’t matter. I beat a No. 7 seed earlier in the year and beat the 10th seed. We knew I was in the realm of getting on the podium, so it was heartbreaking not to go.”
Waddell has a job landscaping during the offseason. He plans to continue working throughout the spring and summer. The upcoming collegiate seasons are still in doubt because of the conoravirus, but Waddell plans to keep improving so he is ready to take the mat when the time comes.
“I need to work on getting off bottom and getting out in front of people so I can score more,” he said. “I’m not a big top or bottom wrestler. I like to score points on my feet, but I can’t do that if I’m getting ridden out. I need to work on getting back to my feet more, and I did improve a lot in that area this year.”
The Mocs’ 2020-2021 season is scheduled to begin in November.